Gold Mountain Blues - Ling Zhang [126]
“Take Kam Ho. Take him with you. When he’s bigger, he should be able to help out,” said Six Fingers.
Ah-Fat grunted. “Not much hope there,” he said. “Can’t expect much from either boy.” With the tip of her finger, Six Fingers smoothed the knot which had formed between Ah-Fat’s eyebrows. Cautiously, she asked: “Has Kam Shan done something to make you angry?” She was aware that since his arrival, Ah-Fat had not said a word about his eldest son.
Ah-Fat did not answer. Instead he turned over and went to sleep.
They were still in bed the next morning when the cook sent up two bowls of jujube and lotus-seed soup. As Six Fingers bent over the soup, ready to drink it, she saw the shadow of a magpie in the liquid. She knew then that Ah-Fat had planted a seed in her belly.
Ah-Fat did not drink the soup. His digestion had accustomed itself to coarse fare during his time in Gold Mountain, and he needed time to get used to refined home cooking. He gazed absently at Six Fingers as she drank.
“Ah-Yin, we haven’t given the house a proper name. I think we should call it ‘Tak Yin House.’ I, Fong Tak Fat married you, Kwan Suk Yin, and that has brought the family great good luck. And there’s something else: if you get pregnant and give me another boy, call him Kam Tsuen. If it’s girl, she should have the generation name Kam, and you can choose her other name.”
Nine months later, Six Fingers gave birth in Tak Yin House.
While she was still resting after the birth, she got Kam Ho to write to Ah-Fat, who had returned to Gold Mountain, to tell him that he had baby daughter, named Kam Sau.
5
Gold Mountain Tracks
Year two of the reign of Xuan Tong to year two of the Republic (1910–1913)
British Columbia
“How many siblings does your grandfather have?”
“He only has one younger brother.”
“How many children does his younger brother have?”
“My great-uncle has one son and two daughters.”
“What is the son called?”
“Fong Tak Hin.”
“Where does your great-uncle live?”
“He lives with us.”
“Does he live upstairs or downstairs?”
“He lives in the second courtyard.”
“How many steps are there to the courtyard?”
“Two.”
“Wrong. Last time you said five.”
“There are five steps up to the main entrance. But from the first to the second courtyard, there are only two steps.”
“Is there a river in your village?”
“There’s a little river. All the village kids swim in it in summer.”
“What’s the name of the river?”
“It hasn’t got a name, so it’s called No-Name River.”
“Whose houses do you pass if you walk from the river to your home?”
“Once you’ve gone up the steps from the river, you get to old Missus Cheung Tai’s house first, then Pigmy Fong’s house, then Au Syun Pun’s. Pigmy Fong’s house and Au Syun Pun’s houses are back to back. Then there’s the village well, and then it’s us.”
“Which way does your woodshed face?”
This question stumped Kam Shan. It was new, not one of the many his dad had prepared him for. He knew where the woodshed was—he and Kam Ho used to play hide and seek in it when they were little. And he knew that its doorway faced neither the kitchen nor the courtyard but a point somewhere in between. So did that count as north facing or west facing? He hesitated, then said doubtfully: “North, it faces north.” His interrogator and the interpreter exchanged glances and both men wrote a question mark in their notebooks. Kam Shan’s heart sank.
Kam Shan was taken back to his cell.
It was a small room, lined with upper and lower bunks on three sides. He had four roommates, two adults